You may recall that Burger King had a marketing tie-in with Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. You may also recall that the movie came out last May. It seems that the Dark Side continues to dominate the destiny of at least one Burger King franchise. This picture was taken today (January 1, 2006):
OK, it may have deflated a bit, but 7-8 months is a bit long to keep an inflatable Darth Vader on your roof.
(10 points to the first person who identifies the reference in the title.)
We went to see a screening of Edward Scissorhands tonight. A couple of local art cinemas (both part of the Edwards/Regal chain) have been doing a weekly “Flashback Features” series since summer (or possibly earlier). The first one we went to was The Princess Bride, which was absolutely packed with people who knew the movie so well they were laughing before the jokes.
None of the others we’d been to were anywhere near as full, and we lost track of the series a couple of months ago. Then yesterday I remembered we’d been planning to go see Edward Scissorhands, and figured we’d missed it. (I finally bought the DVD a couple of months ago, but wanted to hold off until after the screening since Katie hadn’t seen it before.) Fortunately, Katie remembered that it was this week, and we were able to make it. (And for once, we made it on Wednesday, so we could go to South Coast Village instead of Rancho Santa Margarita.)
Well, we prepared to turn into the theater parking lot and noticed it was full. Katie was the first to realize why: Johnny Depp. We got in, but I had to park across the street. The crowd was as good as the one for Princess Bride, and there was even one guy in full costume (the normal-clothes version, not the leather and buckles). We were pleased that while they showed “The Twenty,” which I suspect is a contractual obligation, they neglected to turn on the sound! The 15-year-old print was in terrible shape, but the condition was forgotten quickly.
It’s always a risk to go back and watch something you enjoyed when you were younger. Your tastes change as you grow up (or you actually develop a sense of taste). There are some cartoons and movies I refuse to watch because I want to remember liking them. Sometimes they work out. Sometimes they don’t.
Edward Scissorhands still holds up: The contrast between the inventor’s mansion and the pseudo-50s achingly “normal” suburbia, Danny Elfman’s fairy-tale music, the neighborhood’s curiosity, then acceptance, then ultimate rejection of this strange visitor, Peg’s determination to make things work out, Kim’s slow realization that her boyfriend isn’t a very nice guy, and that this scary blade-handed stranger is, the cop’s efforts to smooth things over—all with Tim Burton’s distinctive quirky style.
Back to the screening series, it really brings out the difference between the home movie experience and the theater experience. It’s not just the size of the screen and the volume of the sound. It’s the audience. When you have a few hundred people all watching the same movie, reacting to the same things, you get an emotional synergy that you don’t get with a couple of people at home—or with a few dozen people yakking and answering their cell phones!
Is this what he saved those mean girls from?
JMS’ new site is getting more interesting all the time. Or rather, what he’s selling through the site. It started out as a 15-volume set of all of JMS’ Babylon 5 scripts, but it’s turned into, in Straczynski’s words, the definitive “Making of B5,” complete with production notes, backstage photos, introductions to each episode, etc.
Unfortunately all the really cool stuff is going into volume 15, which is only going to be available to people who order all of the first 14 volumes. A treatment of the 5-year arc with Sinclair in it all the way, alternate episodes, etc.
I’ve ordered Volume 1. Apparently they underestimated demand—people always underestimate demand for B5—because CafePress sent out a notice that “due to overwhelming popularity, your order for the Babylon 5 Script has been delayed. Our production team is working diligently to ensure that the books are printed as quickly as possible.”
I keep calendars displaying both the current month and the next month up in my cube at work. I figured I’d better post this configuration before it stopped being what I got to look at every day:
CNET has an article on various websites related to Lost. Among them are official sites for Oceanic Airlines and The Hanso Foundation and fan sites for Mega Lotto Jackpot and Charile’s band, Drive Shaft.
I’d seen the Drive Shaft site last year (or at least a Drive Shaft site), though it seems to have exceeded its bandwidth for this month.
The official sites don’t have much detail, but they do have easter eggs…
Update (April 2010): Four and a half years later, as the show barrels toward its conclusion, only the Drive Shaft fan site is still around. Oceanic Air now redirects to ABC’s page for the show, the Hanso Foundation isn’t responding at all, and Mega Lotto Jackpot seems to have been picked up by a domain squatter.
Update (Feb 2017): In the years since I last checked, the Drive Shaft page was also taken over by a squatter, and has since gone offline.
Neil Gaiman writes that Amazon lists 2025 as the release date for the MirrorMask DVD.
Twenty years seems a long way away, but Sony are probably just scheduling it that far off because during the Great iPod Content Uprising Years of 2013-2024 people aren’t going to have much time for things like actually watching films, what with gathering together in places where the iPodPeople can’t get them and shooting them in the brain and all that stuff, and it’s only after the Man-Droid-iPod Peace Treaties of 2024 that anyone gets back to the serious business bringing out DVDs of long-forgotten movies.
“Alternately,” he adds, “I suppose it could be an Amazon.com typo and MirrorMask could be coming out on the last day of this year. That would be nice.”
